requesting the records they are seeking on abortion services and
they may well receive them. Ontario points to the fact that as
part of their factum in these proceedings, they provided the
total number of abortion services related to specific OHIP billing
codes for the fiscal year 2014–2015. These steps taken by Ontario
do not allow this court to conclude that records allowing for
a meaningful public discussion and criticism on abortion will be
made available by Ontario. Ontario has not pointed to any policy
or legislative provision which would allow interested parties to
rely on voluntary disclosure by Ontario. I am unable to rely on
this informal disclosure of information “outside of the FIPPA”.
I specifically reject the statement by Ontario that it will continue to disclose, outside of FIPPA, additional information
related to the provision of abortion services.

[41] Ontario points to several different sources of statistical
information concerning abortion services. It relies upon the
information provided by CIHI which provides information about
the number of abortions performed in hospitals and as voluntarily reported by clinics in Canada on its website. Ontario also
relies on survey data that was collected in 2012, which is published in journals as statistical information on abortion services
already publicly available. Based on the 2014 statistics offered
voluntarily by Ontario in its factum, there were 45,471 abortions
billed during fiscal year 2014–2015. According to the CIHI data
for 2014, there were 23,746 abortions performed in Ontario. The
CIHI information on the total number of abortions in Ontario
represents less than 50 per cent of the total number of abortions
performed in 2014–2015. I acknowledge that the Ontario figures
apply to the 2014–2015 fiscal period and may not apply to the
same period as the CIHI statistics; however, I believe that the
comparison is still valid for the purposes of this analysis.

[42] The existing sources of statistical information do not persuade me that this meets the need to allow for a meaning public
discussion and criticism on abortion. Having less than 50 per
cent of some limited information concerning abortion services
and requiring interested individuals to extrapolate that information on a provincial or national basis is not allowing for
meaningful debate. In addition, requiring interested parties to
project forward from dated statistical information published in
journals does not either address the meaningful public discussion criteria.

[43] Notwithstanding the above, Ontario relies on the fact that
there has been and continues to be meaningful debate on abortion since the adoption of s. 65(5.7). Reliance is placed on the
2015 federal election which engaged members of Parliament on